Cut him in two.

Well, Covid caught me, and that while I was bragging about minding my own business.

Suffice to say it got me pretty bad, in the way that you’d expect it. Fever, sickness, cough, loss of senses. Dragging on like any old flu.
But here’s the thing about it–I don’t think there was a thing I could’ve done differently in order to avoid it.

This hasn’t come as any revelation–in fact, it’s a bit what I expected.
I didn’t need a test–I didn’t get the sniffles and let my brain go into immediate lockdown mode–better make sure! It’s only responsible! 

I didn’t sign up for contact tracing, didn’t spend any time hunting down the culprit.
I didn’t need a better mask, because I wasn’t breathing near or around people. I’m a natural introvert. It just happened in my usual sanguine, solitary life.

I’m not trying to make light of it. Who knows if I’m even out of the woods yet (tho I hope I am, of course. It’s been two full weeks and even tacos drenched in hot sauce don’t wake up my taste buds).
The point I hope to make is this: I got sick, and there is no one to blame for it.

You may hear stories on the news of people who have lost family members or dear ones. This is tragic, but as is typical, tragedy often gets exploited on television. Feelings explode in the spotlight, a visceral mourning unnecessarily (and prematurely) provoked.
There’s always a bone to pick, always glares at the supermarket and nasty comments directed at the irresponsible, the careless. If you had cared more, this wouldn’t have happened. If you weren’t so selfish, less people would be dying. It’s going to take all of us behaving in the same way to stop a pandemic.

I’ve noticed the next level of shaming in the works: the proud, public, responsible vaccine-ers who will save us all with their forethought and global-mindedness. UNICEF urges me to hashtag my vaccine photos with my neighbor-loving reason I got the shot.
Perhaps this is born of a desire to see life get back to normal. I would buy this excuse, except the majority of these vaccine-proud don’t appear to be the elderly or at-risk. They are folks who  have a great shot at contracting the virus and defeating it with their God-given antibodies.
I have my doubts that the hashtagging crowd actually cares or has ever cared about lonely people in nursing homes.
If we truly cared about them, we wouldn’t dare cut the line in front of them.

With all the spare time lying on the couch (this is a bit of a covid homeschool joke), I’ve been thinking on how society is bumping around in the dark, scratching and scrambling to find a light source. There is rage. There is malice. There is plenty of mock compassion with an underbelly of self-righteousness.

Each party has a flickering, dim, battery-powered candle that casts shadows of doubt on the person holding it.
“We need unity!” politicians chant as they rip away the rights and livelihoods of the masses.
“End brutality!” shout protestors as they strip law enforcement of their means to protect the innocent.
“Listen to science!” scream the uber-careful, the same ones who once valiantly saved the environment by eschewing plastic straws (but now retch at the sight of a fellow human not wearing their disposable mask).
“Don’t let them silence your voice!” warn the clairvoyant Christian type, forgetful of how Jesus himself was obedient to death, even (silent) death on a cross.

Where is the wisdom in all of this? Where, actually, is the light switch that will erase the shadows and all the dimwittedness that surrounds us?
King Solomon was, as any Jeopardy-loving, Bible-reading gal knows, the wisest guy in all history. He admitted to God he was a “little child” and “didn’t know how to carry out [his] duties”. Solomon asked the Lord for wisdom to govern his people and to distinguish between right and wrong.

I admire this little child. I love his plea for help. Even more, I love how God praised him and gave him wisdom that spilled over and enriched the lives of his people.
God told Solomon,
“Since you have asked for wisdom, and not for long life or wealth for yourself, nor have you asked for the death of your enemies” (this covers about all of the dimwitted, battery-operated lights), “I will give you what you ask: a wise and discerning heart.”

A wise and discerning heart: how useful in these questionable times!
Solomon’s most famous case as a judge came when two women stood before him, arguing over the true maternity of one baby. As he ordered the sword brought down to (allegedly) split the baby in two (half to be given to each woman), the true mother begged him not to kill her child, but to give it to the other woman.
“No!” screeched the imposter, “Cut him in two!”

Cut him in two, cut him in two.

The dimwitted world wants everything demolished if they cannot have what they want. If the rules be arbitrary (and they are), let no one have justice.

Solomon, in his wisdom, could see this clearly. He spotted a crack in the second woman’s integrity. He read the between-the-lines story, the gap where made-up responsibility can’t block out the pure hatred that lurks beneath.

If we listen close, we can hear the same tune today:

If I can’t have my health, if my loved ones might die, then no one deserves to live.
If I can’t be safe, no one deserves to be safe.

Solomon said,

“Give the living baby to the first woman. Do not kill him; she is his mother.”

Friends, please listen to some otherworldly wisdom: 

The anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. (James 1:20)

Truth doesn’t spring off the lips of liars. Justice does not come from making a scene. Compassion for the sick and vulnerable doesn’t sprout from a heart filled with pride or resentment.
Think more deeply than your surface-level inclination. Filter what you are hearing through the lens of what is truly true, not just what sounds halfway fair.

Wisdom is a scarcely-sought commodity. Turn the light, the all-illuminating Light–on.

Brothers and sisters, stop thinking like children. In regard to evil be infants, but in your thinking be adults.
1 Cor. 14:20

 

What to do when…

-people are posting junk on the internet

-you feel hot and angry

-your inclination is to engage and rebut

-STOP

-You don’t have to say anything

-Test the spirits (1 John 4)–this is your ACTION.

Is the person posting like a tree, planted, bearing fruit like joy, peace, and patience?
Is this a person walking in the counsel of the wicked? (Psalm 1 and Galatians 5)

-remember you have something that is more valuable than precious gold

-don’t throw your pearls at pigs, don’t give what is holy to dogs. Otherwise they will trample them and then attack YOU. (Matthew 7)

-If they claim to be a Jesus follower, remember that Jesus said this ^

-He also said “if they hated me, they will hate you.” (John 15)

-Jesus did other things besides talk because He knew actions speak loudly.

-Wicked people/false prophets are loquacious and love to hear themselves talk.

-They love to argue.

-Did Jesus love to argue?

-Are you talking more than doing?

-Remember your job: to love your God and to love your neighbor as yourself.

-Who is old, who is young, who is being ignored in society? Is it your kids? Is it your neighbors? Is it the Amazon delivery gal? Go love them.

-Love them sacrificially, where it costs you something. Your job, your food, your time.

-You’ll find satisfaction.

-Keep it between you and Jesus

-You will sleep better at night.

-You will be planted like a tree, not crumbling when the wind bends your branches. 

-You’ll bear fruit like joy, peace, and patience.

-The world is falling apart

-YOU don’t have to.

 

If you are wise, your wisdom will reward you; if you are a mocker, you alone will suffer. Proverbs 9:12

Risky business

I am in Mexico right now.

This is a personal decision my family made. We asked no one their opinion on the matter, and we hardly told anyone. We needed no one’s permission, we asked for no one’s good blessing.

We have made many responsible decisions, a few accidental irresponsible ones, and no one knows about them. We have taken many photos, and no one has seen them, because it’s our business and no one else’s. 

We’ve bantered with real people, in real life, in really broken Spanish. Sometimes I have put on sunscreen, and sometimes I’ve abandoned the idea because it is partly cloudy and I am paler than the moon. I just want to see what the tiniest hint of pink could do for my languishing January complexion, so I risk it.

More risky business: my kids have gone swimming, and they cannot swim very well.

I’ve picked up starfish and put them in the hands of a four year old.
I’ve snorkeled right past two bulging eyes that turned out to be a massive stingray. Then I scooted right past another and got the heck out of the ocean because I know all about Steve Irwin and I’m a midwesterner to the core.

Last night we ate food on a deck overlooking a crocodile, one that could’ve killed my children if they’d been foolish enough to stick their legs out into the water.

I say all this because as an American, I’m well aware of the seemingly and potentially harmful, politically tense situation we are facing. I detect concern we are losing our freedoms; that one by one, our liberties will be stripped from us–beginning with our statues, guns, history, and closely followed by freedom of speech, freedom to worship, freedom to pursuit of happiness.

It feels, for all we can see on television and social media, that we are barrelling right into an abyss. Raging mobs certainly don’t make it better, and we’ve had those for several months now.

Closer to home, I stress daily over teaching my oldest kid Gauss’ method, still knowing we have a good six years of math ahead of us, and Gauss already is well beyond my own sweet spot. When it comes to homeschool, I am very weak. (Muy fraca was the excuse I gave our waiter for not ordering a margarita–very weak. So weak, in fact, that I didn’t realize I was speaking half Spanish, half Portuguese, and the words I actually uttered were “very skinny”. We both left confused, till I Google-translated it later.)

I want, like most parents, a regimen. A reliable education. Less emphasis on the social and mental wellbeing (leave it to the parents), and more on the foundations: Reading. Writing. ‘Rithmatic.

I want my boys to be able to play team basketball without submitting them to the cruel and unusual punishment that is wearing a mask for four quarters. (Seems like not that long ago waterboarding was severe, inhumane punishment, and now we just expect our kids to drown in their own juices.)

See, I cannot send my kids to school, and we cannot do what once was normal. It’s easy to assume, therefore, that not getting to live how I want is not fair.

It’s. Not. Fair.

I worry our familiar routines will be replaced with vague and bizarre rules that hold no hope for my kids, who I am hoping will be lovely, wise and wonderful grownups some day.


On the way down to Mexico, I sat next to a man with a beard and a low voice (and other clear indicators that he was a man) who wore a high ponytail, nails, bedazzled jeans, women’s shoes and a purse (plus a mask, of course). He assured me he loved children, and had no problems sitting next to my nine year old, because he was in the child care business.

Listen: I worry, because my kids are puzzled by this behavior. It strikes them as unnatural. It sends red flags flying.

I want to impart clarity, not confusion–but the world is so, so confused.

I could whine that it is not fair to have to explain the weirdness of this generation, but God very clearly told Job “where were you when the world began?”

“It’s not fair” doesn’t ring well in the ears of the Almighty.

When my oldest asked me later why a man would behave this way, I told him it was probably because he felt lonely or unaccepted, and there is nothing more acceptable to the world these days than to live contrary to the way God asks us to live. He acts this way because he desires love and this is his best shot in the dark at finding it.

This week I had the thought that I don’t want to write things on the internet anymore. I love the challenge of quitting social media. I love the thrill of having conversations in person, of not judging a friend because I haven’t seen every photo they’ve ever taken or heard all they’ve got to say about some politician.

I want me–and you–to loosen the tether of things that enslave us without us really knowing it, because we are not really as in a pinch as the world would like us to think.

The truth is, there is still plenty to choose, plenty of risky business.

Social media is not freedom of speech–it is slavery of the soul.
News outlets do not increase knowledge–they make prisoners of popular propaganda.

The crocodile–he is still swimming, always lurking under the deck, and our children walk the boards above it. This is the risk we take in living. They need not dangle their legs over him.

My personal decisions–and yours, they still belong to us.

This includes every responsibility you have that you ought not take lightly: marriage, raising kids, working a steady job to provide for yourself, living honestly and uprightly, and a thousand more. They demand your focus and energy, and this is enough.

This is enough, even if by all appearances, it doesn’t seem fair.

You couldn’t be freer in Christ. You cannot be safer than living the freedom the Jesus-following life offers. You can not live more boldly, love more extravagantly, nor abide more safely in the dangerous waters of our culture.

That isn’t fair either, but I’m more than willing to submit myself to the One who calls all the shots in the end.

We tried to get on a city bus in the dark last night. We had a ten dollar bill, and the driver would not take it. Pesos only. (This was one of our own risky irresponsible decisions.) Four kids, and one had lost a flip flop and was flipping out. We walked away from the bus, disappointed.
But then the bus honked. A kind gal poked her head out the window and said she had pesos she could exchange for us.
The bus driver waited. We got on the bus and got home. Mercy from strangers–what a blessing.

I reminded my kids before bedtime that as believers we are to “let no debt remain outstanding, except for the debt to love one another, for whoever loves others fulfills the Law.”
(Romans 13:8)

This a risky business.
Lean into it.

 

How have You loved us?

I’m determined to squeeze in one more post for the year. 

A friend of mine and I were quasi-lamenting over Christmas cards this year–the lack of, yes, but also the faint sorrow detected because of it.
She told me of one card received from an older woman who wrote in the mass letter that this year has been so awful, there was nothing worth writing about. In fact, there was no reason to take a happy picture with her family (it would have been impossible anyhow, due to Covid) or send it to anyone, so instead she included photocopies of pictures of years past and happier times. A photo of her as a toddler under the Christmas tree. One of her grown children when they were small. Christmases past, happier times.

Oh, it made me sad for this lady. And I think there must be many in this same despair.
It reminds me of Malachi, the last book in the Old Testament, right before God took a 400 year sabbatical (He didn’t really, He was just gearing up for an incredible entrance–)

“I have loved you,” says the Lord.
“But you ask, ‘How have you loved us?’”
Malachi 1:2

Nothing for which to feel grateful? Friend, you have much. Let me help remind you.

People like to reflect and look forward sometime around the end/beginning of a year. Once many years ago, I prayed God would make my love for His word grow. 

As a twenty-something, I was overwhelmed by the wisdom therein. I felt like a failure for not applying myself to studying it, not digesting it as I should. But how to digest in huge doses? How to savor if only biting off big hunks and swallowing whole books? I needed wisdom, and I needed a practical view of it.

If any of you lacks wisdom, ask God! He gives it to all liberally, without reproach, and it will be given to you.
James 1:5

I’m happy to say every promise in Him is yes (a resounding one, 2 Corinthians 1 tells me–this means Yes! Yes! Yes!). Not only does my love for it grow, but it grows exponentially.

It changes everything.
I could tell you, but I’ve already told you. The only counsel, the only assurance, the only forgiveness and right living comes from knowing God’s Word.

Want to know how to succeed in business? How to handle dealing with fools? How to not be a fool? Read Proverbs.

Want a quick lesson in chasing dreams? Care to understand the emptiness in following your heart? Read Ecclesiastes.

Need help expressing the deepest aches and longings of your heart? Psalms.

I am convinced we sometimes feel the sorriest for ourselves because we have tuned out every form of hope. We’ve dialed that radio into white noise and can’t for the life of us find the energy to crank it back.

A sluggard buries his hand in the dish but is too lazy to bring it back to his mouth (Proverbs 19:24).
I have been the sluggard. Lord, sometimes we believe, but help us with our unbelief! Help us with our laziness, our ambivalence toward your Word!
The Bible uncovers every soft, tender spot in us and shines a spotlight there. It heals us. It grinds down our bitterness and pride.

Tonight we had our oldest read us Psalm 73 aloud–King James Version, just for kicks.
I was envious when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. (v.3)
Their eyes stand out with fatness: they have more than heart could wish. They are corrupt, and speak wickedly concerning oppression: they speak loftily. (v.7-8)

Slow down, child!
I had to tell him to pause so I could scribble it in my notebook. Absolutely, I have envied the prosperity of the wicked! Amen, they are fat with good things, they have more than they could wish. I have seen it this very year–how they are corrupt! How much people are struggling while being told it is for their health and safety!

They set their mouth against the heavens, and their tongue walketh through the earth. (v.9)

How the wicked talk and talk! How many words! Walking, wagging tongues. Lofty talk concerning oppression–this whole year was filled with phony social justice talk!

My mind flew to Jeremiah, the time when the people made a covenant to free their slaves.
But afterward they changed their minds and took back the slaves they had freed and enslaved them again. (34:11)

This is what the Lord says,
You have not obeyed me; you have not proclaimed freedom to your own people. So now I proclaim ‘freedom’ for you, declares the Lord–

‘Freedom’ to fall by the sword, plague and famine. (34:17)

God throws down air quotes. Here’s some “freedom” for ya. My heart burns when I read it. Justice from the true Judge, not pretense from pretenders.

Racism? Classism?–He addresses it. No tolerance for the wicked, the double-tongued.

But also, no tolerance for the lazy: The one who is not willing to work should not eat (2 Thess. 3:10).

This is the Book that answers all my questions. It speaks to my here and now. It aligns my soul and rights my motives.

Chances are, you have it sitting on a shelf nearby.

How has He loved us? He gave us the Magnum Opus of love declarations. It is displayed in His creation, engraved on our hearts, and written in a tidy 800,000 word Book wooing us back to Him.

My four year old has been reciting the first chapter of Psalm since she could talk. It’s the cutest thing ever to get a two year old to say Bible verses, and if you do it every night at bedtime, they will whisper it back like a silly game. Add hand motions, clap the beat, sing it to the tune of a Disney song. I guarantee there is nothing sweeter, and they will memorize whole chapters if you put in the effort.

Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, (stay away from fools and foolish talk!)

Or stands in the way of sinners, or sits in the seat of scoffers (don’t hang around their path, don’t give them the time of day!)

But his delight is in the Law of the Lord
And on this Law he meditates day and night.
(this is THE Book, the one worth reading and studying and thinking about)

He is like a tree planted by streams of water
Which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither,
Whatever He does prospers.

The wise person is planted. Their tree has fruit.

How has He loved you? Maybe you can think of many ways this year has let you down.
But He has given us His word. It never fails. It will make you wise, and if you let it sink in, it will benefit every area of your life.

He can make your desire to know Him grow–the promise is Yes.

Yes! Yes! Yes!

 

If you need help getting started reading your Bible and/or understanding the parts you don’t understand, there are many resources! There are apps you can put on your phone and podcasts you can listen to, like Bible Recap. You can do an easy Google search and find a printable checklist to read the Bible in a year. Personally, I read a One Year Bible that I picked up for a dollar at a thrift store. I can mark it up as much as I want, dog-ear it, etc., and it keeps me on track, reading-wise. Other than that, I listen daily to Thru the Bible with J. Vernon McGee. I cannot tell you how much I have learned from this man. His 5 year study is fantastic and I’ve been doing it for over ten years now. Each daily study is 20 minutes.
If your are an auditory learner, invest in an audio version of the Bible and keep it on your phone or in your car. I have this dramatized version. There is one called The Bible Experience that I’ve been wanting to try out (you can get it free right now with an Audible trial period)–it includes real actors’ voices, like Denzel Washington, Forest Whitaker, Levar Burton.
Begin with Judges or 1 Samuel, something fast-paced and fascinating. I promise you’ll want to stick with it just to find out what happens next.

If this is all still very new to you or overwhelming, don’t worry!
Begin with a kids’ version, like the comic-style Action Bible. I have the audio recording on my phone so even non-reading kids can follow along. I love it because it is chronological and includes many details that other children’s Bibles leave out. Yes, your kids can understand Ezekiel! You can, too!
The Jesus Storybook Bible is another precious little kids’ version that hits the big stories and the overall theme of the Bible.

In the Closet: Bridling the Unbridled

The Average Pearl
The Average Pearl
In the Closet: Bridling the Unbridled
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In the Closet: Keeping Secrets with God in a not-so-secret world

Essay 11: Bridling the Unbridled Tongue

Do you see a person wise in their own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for them.
Proverbs 26:12

Mere cowardice is shameful; cowardice boasted of with humorous exaggerations and grotesque gestures can be passed off as funny. 

Cruelty is shameful–unless the cruel man can represent it as a practical joke. A thousand bawdy, or even blasphemous, jokes do not help towards a man’s damnation so much as his discovery that almost anything he wants to do can be done, not only without the disapproval but with the admiration of his fellow, if only it can get itself treated as a Joke.
C.S. Lewis , Screwtape Letters

 

Around my fifth grade year, the school counselor came up with the concept of peer mediation. Perhaps this was backed up by empirical evidence or maybe she was just tired of dealing with all the minor tiffs that showed up in her office on an hourly basis. Fifth graders on the cusp of puberty can be cruel to one another. To solve the problem on a basic level, she gathered a group of the more emotionally mature–the kids that didn’t have a massive friend group (gee, thanks?), or maybe we who seemed indifferent when it came to arguing (now that I think about it, I cannot decipher why she picked who she picked), and she trained us to mediate between conflicted fifth graders.

This is how it went: I would follow the two parties into an empty room and set up two chairs to face one another. Then I, the obviously mature, lacking-in-friendships, neutral fifth grader, would set a third chair nearby so that I might sit and watch them rage at one another, knees practically touching.

But first, I would lay down the rules. “Everything said in this room is confidential. That means,” here I’d pause and take a deep breath, trying to remember the exact words I was trained to say, “everything said in this room behind closed doors stays in this room behind closed doors.” The conflicted parties would smirk and I would jot notes on my clipboard, pretending to play King Solomon to their immature problems. My job was to referee, keep it civil while they talked out their issues. I was trained to find their commonalities, swiftly point them out, record the session on paper, and return to class. To be sure, we took our sweet time. We had one very important thing in common: we were all three just happy to be missing the lesson going on down the hallway.

I am certain the minor arguments were never fully solved, but peer mediation probably served its menial purpose, since fifth graders were no longer pouring into the counselor’s office.

I always felt superior just for the big word I’d tucked in my pocket along with its memorized definition. Confidential. Anything said, done, heard in this room stays in this room.

If it seemed ambitiously virtuous for a fifth grader, it certainly was. Keeping secrets is nearly impossible for anyone with a lust for attention–which is to say, all of us. 

Who doesn’t want a juicy tidbit to share at recess or the satisfaction of being the first person to break news to a bloodthirsty audience? And that was just fifth grade. 

Imagine now, as an adult, the potential to harm, exploit, promote, and market. Confidentiality is nearly extinct in this present time, where the thoughts of man bubble up from the surface with little provocation.
Quick remarks slip out the front door of a person’s heart and are made public as soon as we hit the pavement of the internet. It is as second nature as putting on our pants in the morning–we proclaim our opinions, desires, waking moments, precious pictures to an audience. We declare our outrage, disappointment, judgment, hurt feelings. We wrap deep convictions with thick satire, conjure up a hundred videos and memes to express our funny-not-funny opinions. We’ve shoved our vulnerability so deep in the cracks it wouldn’t dare peek out its shameful head.

There is little wrestling with one’s conscience, little editing. We’re too cool to think before we speak. 

Once on the way to volunteer in my kid’s classroom, I passed a bulletin board in the hallway of our elementary school. On it was pasted the phrase, “Take Captive Every Thought”. This, lifted from 2 Corinthians 10:5, was displayed in public school for children. It was surrounded by little smiling emojis with thought bubbles that said things like, I don’t have to act the way I feel, and I can be worried and still choose to be in control.  The bulletin board was simply advocating mindfulness of the public school stock variety. An institution which walks on eggshells to the point of not wishing a Merry Christmas lest they appear prejudiced would not, I repeat not, slap up a Bible verse for the willy nilly fun of it.
Take captive every thought–quite revolutionary, isn’t it? And with a closer look, surrounded by a forceful whip of righteousness.
Though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

2 Corinthians 10:3-5

It is a picture of trapping our sin instinct, our soul struggles, and dragging them to Jesus, the King, the judge. We make them bow before the master. Mindfulness, shmindfulness–we force our own thoughts to fall on their faces before Him.

Sentimental jargon? Weeds. Snide, sideways criticism? Thorns. Pride? Pour on the gasoline; they burn up in a holy spirit blaze.

The practice of capturing our thoughts and making them submit to a higher power has several purposes. 

First, it makes us aware of our natural tendencies, our abject poverty apart from a holy God. Paul said, “what a wretched man I am! Who will save me from this body of sin?” Without a doubt, it is the thoughts that stream in our minds which find us forever guilty, forever the responsible party.

Second, we are forced to admit our powerlessness to handle the sometimes raging, inappropriate nature of the thought.

Third, it acknowledges our dependence on a supernatural source. On our own we do not have the power to fight this battle.

And last, it prevents seeds of bitterness from falling and taking root in our hearts. Seals and Crofts weren’t wrong: Love takes no prisoners. Love shows no mercy.

Made aware of the awfulness. Forced to admit our powerlessness. Acknowledging our dependence. Cleans us from the inside out.

Our worst thoughts, our best thoughts–though ceaseless, they do not define us. It is simply the old nature–that flesh we mortified when we chose to live by the Spirit so we might not gratify it. 

The thoughts, the creeping fountain bubbling up–it can be controlled, boundaried. We can be self-controlled, we can be love-controlled.
We can hope for that which was formerly hopeless. Isn’t that wonderful? It gave Paul hope. “Who can save me from this body of sin? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus!”

Holy spirit fire–this is the weapon that has the power to demolish the enemy. 

It must be exercised with care and calculation. If we could personify the internal struggle between good and bad, cartoon character-style, I would imagine quite a tussle. The bad guys would wriggle and squirm to get out of their handcuffs–anything to escape before being handed over to the Judge. 

It’s obvious, then, that the capturing of the thoughts themselves takes time, not to mention the process of holding them in court. Therefore, a thought that then comes forth from a heart with audible words forced through the mouth–ought it not be sifted a time or two for editing purposes? 

Here we are, each human with two ears and one mouth, dependent on the Holy Spirit to come up with anything worth saying.  

Proverbs 17:28 says,

Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent.

We used to sing hymns to remind us: angry words, oh let them never from my tongue unbridled slip.

It is a long haul to claim back such confidentiality, isn’t it? To strip away the modpodged surface and let our vulnerable, non-shiny selves rely on the Holy Spirit to lead us step by step in our words? 

The verse that has been nailed to my wall the longest is Colossians 4:6:

Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.

I’ve stared at it for years, the painted salt shaker tipped over, spilling grains onto the words. It turns out I’ve been too focused on the salt. 

It isn’t the salt shaker in my pocket that guides me and my conversation in a saltless world.
It’s actually Who holds the shaker, and He gets to decide when and how to apply it.
He doesn’t wage war as the world does–so I won’t, either.